Knives Out Is ‘Agatha Christie Meets Hitchcock’ Says Rian Johnson

Before he gets started on his own Star Wars spin-off trilogy, Rian Johnson has been off working on an all-new original murder mystery thriller with a pretty jaw-dropping cast – including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lakeith Stanfield, Michael Shannon and more. Titled Knives Out, the film has already wrapped ahead of its November release, and Johnson shared the first trailer at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Hopefully the rest of us will get to see it soon – but in the meantime, Johnson has teased a bit of what we can expect.

“Knives Out was my attempt to take everything I love about an Agatha Christie whodunit, jam it into an all-star cast, give it a Hitchcock thriller, genre twist and set it in modern-day America,” Johnson said on stage at CinemaCon, as reported by THR{=nofollow}. That’s one hell of a promising mash-up – and for anyone who’s been following Johnson since his Brick days, a welcome return to his crime-movie roots. According to reports, the film is set in a mansion during a family gathering during which the elderly patriarch, played by Christopher Plummer, dies. When Daniel Craig and Lakeith Stanfield’s detectives arrive, they place the rest of the family under suspicion of his murder.

Following Knives Out, Johnson will be getting down to business on his next Star Wars films – here’s hoping we might find out a little more of what those will involve at next week’s Star Wars Celebration event. Knives Out is due to arrive in cinemas on 27 November.

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